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It has been 15 years already since we started the courses on “How to do research” that developed gradually into broader activities of the International Research Interdisciplinary Schools (IRIS) (1). Over the years, the program has been optimized to address the needs of trainees, and to create a motivating and creative training environment. The goals of IRIS courses focus on developing skills to carry out research projects, based on a practical, problem-based approach, on increasing communication skills, including the skills in argumentation, negotiation and critical appraisal, on developing skills in international research team building and networking, on establishing enjoyable cross-discipline/cross-cultural collaboration, and on encouraging researchers to publish scientific papers. Last but not least, an important effort of IRIS activities is to build an international network of young researchers and mentors in biomedical research, as well as to develop and support national research capacities and activities (1). One of the major strengths of the IRIS program is the intensive personal communication and interaction between the faculty and participants, as well as between and within the training groups. However, the year 2020 has been a very special one. On the one hand, we have built on our 15 years of experience, on the other hand, we have had to face all the new conditions and restrictions related the COVID19 pandemics. The solution was to move to the virtual space and to utilize ad maximum the possibilities of on-line communication. This paper summarizes our first experience. The planning and the organization of the IRIS 2020 courses differed substantialy from the usual scheme. As usual, the planning and organizing started in the second half of 2019 when the potential locations of the IRIS 2020 course were selected. This “pre-COVID19 period” included the end of the year 2019 and the beginning of the year 2020, and covered routine organizational tasks, such as the selection of the locations, fundraising, faculty invitations and recruitment of participants. However, the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemics at the beginning of the year 2020 changed the preparation of IRIS considerably and it took different direction and speed considering many aspects of professional as well as personal lives (2). The IRIS 2020 Slovakia was originally planned for the beginning of September 2020. The restrictions after the first wave were freed during the summer, however the COVID restrictions and the transition to the on-line management influenced all aspects of planning, preparation, and of course the program as well. It was decided that the IRIS Slovakia 2020 would be in a great part on-line, a combination of personal and on-line participation – IRIS digital 2020 Slovakia. The personal part of the course was held in Mojmirovce, Slovakia, September 11-16, 2020, with on-line participation of the foreign faculty and foreign participants. The planning had to consider the limitation in travelling for both the faculty and participants, these restrictions were introduced by national governments but also by individual organizations, e. g. universities or hospitals. The IRIS strength is the international faculty, for the IRIS Slovakia the invited faculty were from the USA, Australia, Ukraine, Poland, Kyrgyzstan and Slovakia, with different national COVID-19 related restrictions. It was decided that only the Slovak faculty would be present in Mojmirovce, while foreign faculty will be connected on-line.

IRIS 2020: moving to the virtual space: IRIS Slovakia 2020 digital – the first step to the on-line arrangement